To Add Insult to Injury

Dear Cleaning Crew,

Thank you very much for packing up all of the supplies that the repairmen left in our flat.  Having the drop cloths, pieces of pipe, dirty rags and other various bits and bobs wrapped up for pick-up or the bin is very nice.  Having my Ugg Boots included in the trash pile, not so nice.

I know I have big feet, I know that they're a bit dirty from my latest hike in the glorious wet British weather we've been having, but these are most certainly not work or workman's boots.

Needless to say, I'm confused why you selected these when we actually did have about half a dozen pairs of these in the very same area of the flat:


 Sadly those also belong to us.

Thanks and Regards,
Anonymous Expat

Perth Shopping- Gag Me

I need a new pair of shoes for work, really badly.  I’ve been wearing my current pair for the past four years, including every work day of the past two years.  I’ve worn them barefoot, in +40˚C weather, and through deserts and occasional flooding.  The sole of one is peeling off, the heel of the other is ripped, and they smell really bad.  So bad that I’ve taken to washing my feet every evening when I get home (Which shockingly enough makes me miss the two bidets in the last house.  Yes, I do know what bidets should actually be used for.  And yes, I have only ever used them to wash my feet).

It’s not for want of other shoes that I’ve taken to wearing this pair everyday.  While my closet in Perth has many fewer pairs than my closet(s) in the U.S., I do have other options.  But none are as stylish or as comfortable.  I really just want to buy a new pair of the same shoe.  Of course, Tory Burch shoes are not sold in Australia, at least Western Australian; if they were, they would probably cost three times the price.  So I have taken to scouring the handful of ‘nice’ stores in Perth for a substitute pair of work flats.

In the months, almost year, that I’ve attempted to shop in Perth, I’ve grown to appreciate the shopping that we once had at our fingertips living in the Middle East.  While it was just like home, except with no tax and slightly higher prices / less frequent sales, apparently the shopping at home is pretty spectacular.  I noticed that the inventory at David Jones has basically not turned over since we got here and found two ok pairs of shoes for about twice as much as I would consider paying for them.  Perhaps the stores have not yet realized that the Australian dollar is actually around parity with the U.S. dollar and adjusted their prices accordingly.  The salespeople have been at best absent and at worst condescending, ignorant and unhelpful.  Shockingly enough, I am still wearing my stinky, yet stylish, shoes.

Smelly feet are one thing but the unchanging, bad inventory is making me depressed.  H and I just did yet another walkabout in David Jones, the ‘nice’ department store in Perth, and were underwhelmed by the merchandise, let alone the pricing.  Never have I seen so much polyester in what is deemed to be an upscale department store.  Out of date styles by years, not just seasons, cheap fabric and bad cuts abounded.  And I’m talking about what was for sale, not just what the salespeople were wearing.

Fingers crossed that the shopping will be better in our next location.  Although the men there are known to wear 'skirts.'

Back to the '80s

Sometimes I forgot where I am when I wake up.  But I've never had cause to question what year it is until today.  At this morning's safety meeting, my manager shared how she made a non-alcoholic party punch for her New Year's Eve party that really helped her guests cut back on how much alcohol they consumed.  She said she used her recipe from the 1980s and it was a huge hit.

Following the meeting, I walked back to my office and passed a woman wearing these in black:

Since when do they make shoes with Koosh balls on them???

The King of Diseases and the Disease of Kings

I thought that gout went the way of Hippocrates, eunuchs and Henry VIII but apparently not.  Anonymous Colleague came limping into work today.  Figuring it was the whole eight hours he spent wearing his plastic dress shoes at work yesterday before changing into sneakers to walk to his car, I didn't think much of it.  Sadly, he thinks I enjoy engaging in conversation with him and decided to tell me as I was making myself a cup of coffee that he woke up with a bad case of gout.  Gout!  Apparently he gets gout about six times a year.  Thankfully this occurrence didn't happen over the weekend or he would have been in pain during his regular date night at The Sizzler's buffet with his girlfriend. 

Ignoring the surprising fact that someone who loves The Sizzler and plastic dress shoes actually has a girlfriend, is Anonymous Colleague too stupid to connect the dots?  He does regularly give me a blank Dilbert stare when attempting to talk about financials and other company business, but doesn't he know that dietary causes (including over consumption of alcohol, meat and seafood) account for about 12% of gout?  For someone who claims to suffer from it about every other month, one would think that he would stop his weekly forays to The Sizzler. 

Western Australian Retail Therapy

Yesterday H graciously went shopping with me for some new shoes for work.  H had heard of a good shoe store from some colleagues so after breakfast we set off for some Western Australian retail therapy.  I had been asked by my boss to pick up some new shoes for work with the following restrictions: above the ankle, lace-up, and steel toed boots.  Not even having above the ankle socks, I put on a pair of H's and scanned the shelves looking for something mildly attractive.

"Anonymous Expat (AE)," H said to me, "you can't choose steel toed boots based on what they look like, they have to be comfortable."

"But H," I responded, "those Blundstones are actually nice and people wear them with normal clothes too."

"AE, you're not allowed to get those," H responded, "you need lace-up boots."

"But H, all the lace-up boots are ugly..."

By this point a very nice saleswoman had come over to ask if she could help.  I explained that I needed steel toed, above the ankle, lace-up boots.  She started to describe the merits of each different pair and seeing that I was still focused on the pull-on Blundstones, offered to bring out multiple kinds of lace-up boots for me to try on.  I accepted and sat down with five different kinds of boots in front of me.  At least I got to choose between ugly, uglier and ugliest in various shades of black, dark brown, and tan.

The first four boots were men's and way too wide on my feet, leaving the least umm... fashionable pair as my only option.  

"H, can you feel my toes to see if these boots are too big?"

"AE, they're steel toed, I won't be able to feel anything."

So out came the next smaller size so I could confirm that the boots that my feet were swimming in width wise, albeit less so than in the previous four pairs, were the correct length.  After determining that they were I tried to walk, only to have my heels pop out.  So H sat me down like a small child trying to put a pair of ski boots on (cough, me) and laced my boots up nice and tight.  After a short stroll around the store to determine if they were comfortable I asked H if he had seen a mirror so I could what the boots looked like.

"AE, I don't think there is a mirror in here, and that's on purpose."

So with that, I took my boots off and checked out.  And then the corporate card I had been given for this task was rejected!  When I called the credit card company to determine why, I was told that my card was blocked for use at apparel stores.

"Apparel stores," I laughed, "I'm buying steel toe boots."  So now do I not only have to wear my lovely new boots and break them in, but next I have to figure out how to claim them back on expenses to the company.  I know I was told not to buy Jimmy Choos on my corporate card, but come on...

Low Riders

One of the first things I noticed on the roads of WA was the appearance of pickup trucks that are the same height off the ground as cars; these are commonly referred to as yutes. H has always wanted a pickup and joked that he was going to get one in Perth. I have always considered pickups as leisure transport rather than a necessity for work to be rather redneck. Put a pickup truck on a car base and you have a recipe for total hillbillies. (Although H does claim to be from south of the Mason-Dixon line so maybe that tells you something ;) ) H asserts that pickups are great for haulin’ things. Ask him what he’s planning on hauling and he doesn’t have such a fast response. I’m sure what he’s thinking about hauling couldn’t possibly be massive amounts of bags from the shopping mall? For those trips he prefers taking his convertible, which has the smallest trunk you’ve ever seen in order to limit the possible damage to our credit cards.

Another thing I observed about WA is that the locals don’t always like to wear shoes. The first time I ever saw someone walking shoeless outside in an inappropriate place (i.e. not grass or sand but rather city streets) was the tour guide for my pre-application visit to the Brown University campus. The guide claimed he liked to feel the earth against his soles but I wasn’t quite sure how much he was feeling through the inch of Providence grime on the bottoms of his feet. The next notable inappropriate shoelessness incident of my life occurred about nine hours into the eleven and a half hour flight from Dubai to Perth when I was waiting online to use the airplane lavatory. The “Occupied” lock on the bathroom door went off, the door opened, the person exited, and the woman in front of me went in BAREFOOT. Yes, she went into the airplane lavatory barefoot (no socks, no shoes, nothing) towards the latter end of a long haul flight. And let me just say that the floor was both wet and sticky when I went in after her, GROSS!

Since then I have observed countless incidents of inappropriate Western Australian shoelessness: individuals and entire families walking barefoot through restaurants, malls, and city streets. But the epitome of WA as redneck territory showed up last night at the gas station in Belmont in the form of a terribly overweight middle-aged man, hauling himself out of his sparkling black yute placing his BAREFEET on the gas station ground and proceeding to pump gas and go into the gas station to pay, all without shoes on. Tell me, do you think these people wash their feet before getting into bed at night? Such Low Riders…